Party chief heads for downfall

NSW Labor Party president Bernie Riordan is expected to bow to pressure from Premier
Kristina Keneally
to resign before the March state election following public statements made by the union he heads.

Mr Riordan, who leads the NSW branch of the Electrical Trades Union, incurred the Premier’s wrath on Sunday when the union said in its quarterly newsletter it would back candidates from “all political persuasions" in the state election, asserting a win for the Labor party was “highly unlikely".

Ms Keneally said yesterday NSW Labor’s administration committee, which manages the party on a day-to-day basis and of which Mr Riordan is a member, would meet on Friday, intimating he would be dumped as party president unless he resigned first.

Mr Riordan’s resignation was expected last night. Neither he nor the union would comment.

“Mr Riordan right now has a period of reflection, he has the opportunity to resign from his position," Ms Keneally said. “If he doesn’t, admin meets on Friday."

Mr Riordan, the son of Whitlam government minister Joe Riordan, backed Environment Minister
Frank Sartor
for Ms Keneally’s job after then-premier
Nathan Rees
was rolled by the Labor party’s dominant Right faction in December last year.

As boss of the right-wing state branch of the union, the head of the state ALP machine opposed the privatisation of the state’s electricity assets and helped oust former premier Morris Iemma over the issue in 2008. Bids for the state’s privatised gentrader assets closed this month.

In the spring edition of its Live Wire newsletter, the union blamed electricity price rises on “successive NSW governments taking billions of dollars out of the industry over the last 20 years and preventing the distributors from maintaining and updating the NSW electricity network".

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The Electrical Trades Union issued a press release at the weekend, stating that “the ETU NSW Branch and Mr Riordan remain committed to the NSW Labor Party and will continue this support into the future".

The union’s comments in its newsletter – which were not signed by Mr Riordan – came as the NSW Labor government’s prospects of re-election next year grew even more bleak.

Seventeen Labor MPs have said they will quit politics at or before the state election and Ms Keneally has also acknowledged that a fifth term for the state Labor government is “improbable".

On the back of an unconvincing federal win, the Labor brand suffered a further blow in Victoria’s state election on Saturday as voters delivered a 6 per cent to 7 per cent swing against the John Brumby-led government. The state has installed its first Liberal-National Coalition government in 11 years.

The Electrical Trades Union is no stranger to scuffles with the Labor party. The union’s left-wing Victorian branch donated $325,000 to the Greens during the federal election.

At the same time, branch secretary
Dean Mighell
tried to injunct the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union from donating $500,000 to the Labor party.

Mr Mighell was expelled from the ALP before the last election at former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s insistence after he was caught on tape swearing and bragging about extracting extra payments from employers.